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Originally Posted by kenbennett
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08-10-2015 06:28 PM
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Originally Posted by destinytot
Wittgenstein was important to me then and he made clear some simple yet important distinctions, such as the difference between 'not having' something and 'lacking' something. A rose, for example, does not have teeth but does not lack them. A man without teeth lacks them.
Related to this is the notion of evil as a "privation", which is important in Catholic theology. (I wasn't Catholic when young but I had read arguments about "the problem of evil" and was familiar with the notion of privation---the absence of something that should be there.)
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
Imo, perfect rhymes can be stable, or in musical terms consonant. If overused they can sound simple, plain, childlike, sing songy, ... like Dr. Suez. Still done right and/or in the right situation they can work great.
If you break away from perfect rhymes there are tons of words you can use with awful.
Obvious ones like: forgetful, sorrowful, unlawful
Less obvious: so cool, you fool, apple, snowball, rain fall,
Even further out like: hobo
Given 10 minutes and a rhyming dictionary I'm sure I could find 50 words to rhyme with awful. The nice thing about doing that kind of exercise is it can open new pathways for ones lyrics. This is one way to create 'inspiration'.
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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Originally Posted by fep
I get that off-rhymes (assonance) can be used to great effect, though "troth full" would not be a good example of that because it cannot be pictured or conceived, so it is a non-image that doesn't rhyme: what does it add to the lyric? What is the selling point of "troth full"?
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We can talk about "Lush Life" for as long as anyone likes but I think it apt to look at other lyrics too. Here is the lyric (complete with verse) of Cole Porter's "Night And Day". It's a song many singers have sung (and many jazz musicians have performed without a vocalist). I think it's a well-wrought lyric
Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom tom
When the jungle shadows fall
Like the tick, tick, tock of the stately clock
As it stands against the wall
Like the drip, drip drip of the rain drops
When the summer showers through
A voice within me keeps repeating
You, you, you
Night and day you are the one
Only you beneath the moon or under the sun
Whether near to me or far it's no matter darling
Where you are
I think of you
Day and night, night and day
Why is it so that this longing for you
Follows where ever I go
In the roaring traffic's boom, in the silence of my lonely room
I think of you
Night and day, day and night
Under the hide of me, there's an oh such a hungry yearning
Inside of me
And this torment wont be through
Till you let me spend my life making love to you
Day and night, night and day
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"Night And Day" doesn't do it for me.
I'll take "Like Someone In Love" with Bjork singing.
Whenever I learn a song, even with the intention of doing it instrumentally, if it has lyrics I always read the them and find a good vocal example to inform my approach.
Another one is "You Go To My Head" with Diana Krall singing.
For "Night And Day" I'll take Oscar Peterson's piano version over any vocal.
From Cole Porter's lyrics, I like "Anything Goes".
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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Love the way he lengthens the 2nd and 4th rhyming phrases in each pair of the following:
Night and day, under the hide of me,
there's an oh such a hungry yearning burning inside of me
And this torment won't be through
Till you let me spend my life making love to you
Day and night, night and day
the second one really teases out the line lyrically and musically . really great stuff. this was one of my "songs while driving" songs for about a year and a half.Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 08-11-2015 at 07:01 AM.
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08-11-2015, 07:21 AM #60destinytot GuestOriginally Posted by MarkRhodes
But the message is right up my street.
'Want' always reminds me of the boy and girl whom Ebenezer Scrooge meets when shown Christmas Present in Dickens's A Christmas Carol*, and whose names are Ignorance and Want. I no longer believe the greed and poverty they symbolise to be any less of an issue in cities today.
I also find it significant that a single verb is commonly used for both 'love' and 'want' in Spanish.
Speaking of the 'object of my affection', the music is what grabs my attention about songs - lyrics are what stay with me. However, one notable exception is Marvin Gaye's I Want You; the music (fantastic groove and vocal) certainly grabs my attention, but what stays with me are not the lyrics themselves but the total (and, provided it wasn't induced by 'artificial' means, heroic) absence of inhibition.
I most admire lyrics I can interpret as metaphor - including, if not especially - love songs. Metaphor for major, elevated themes. Regarding 'want', I'm concerned that people are too ready to not just die but kill because of it. One of my favourite love songs is Emily, with words by Johnny Mercer and music by Johnny Mandel, written for the movie The Americanization of Emily (1964), which goes beyond the theme of romantic love when the character played by James Garner speaks out against honouring the institution of war.
Although the lyrics I like singing are usually love songs, I doubt whether I'll ever write any - because there are more than enough beautiful standards. I think the trick is being able to adapt standards to one's own tastes - and not the other way round. The word 'interpreting' means nothing without having a well-developed palette - a reasonably wide range of options - for making meaningful choices. (Personally, I seem to learn by looking at what doesn't work, then doing it differently.)
For my liking, there are too may instances where songs dealing with noble themes are diluted - perhaps deliberately, if not tastelessly (because it operates to stifle voices) - when lyrics are translated across languages and across styles. (Least said, soonest mended.)
One of the things I respect and admire about Gene Lees is how, in his English versions of bossa nova classics, he's able to alter the message ever so slightly but without altering the thrust of the message - for example, his Someone to Light Up My Life, which Sinatra sang so marvellously (posted below).
My favourite Gene Lees lyrics are these - among the most beautiful songs I've ever heard - for the animated movie of Russell Hoban's The Mouse and his Child:
*EDIT I remember the Cratchits - a name to conjure with - all year round: happy and poor.
Last edited by destinytot; 08-11-2015 at 09:30 AM. Reason: spelling, clarity and addition
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
Awful and thoughtful would not be a rhyme?
Rhyme types from Pat Pattison's online songwriting class from Berkley School of Music:
Perfect Rhyme
Family Rhyme
Additive and subtractive rhyme
Assonance Rhyme
Consonance RhymeLast edited by fep; 08-11-2015 at 09:01 AM.
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[QUOTE=kenbennett;557260
From Cole Porter's lyrics, I like "Anything Goes".[/QUOTE]
I love "Anything Goes" too. And "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" and "I've Got You Under My Skin" and.... Cole wrote his share of standards.
Here's Frank's version from 1962. (I prefer the late '50s version but this one contains the verse.)
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Originally Posted by fep
Normally, when one says "rhyme" one means what you call "perfect rhyme" (or "actual rhyme").
Other sorts of rhyme have their uses but they need to be specified. For example, some online rhyming dictionaries will allow searches for near-rhymes, so that 'awful' will return (among others) wobble, gospel, gobble, bobble, hostile, soften, and, yes, thoughtful. (None of these words appear when the search is for 'rhymes').
One may also search for 'match consonants only': afoul, eyeful, offal...
These words have their uses and may influence the choice of words within a line, and also with phrases that do not rhyme but seem fitting. A favorite example of assonance: "the crumbling thunder of seas." (Robert Louis Stevenson)
I just ordered Pat Pattison's book on lyric writing ("Writing Better Lyrics").Last edited by MarkRhodes; 08-11-2015 at 11:53 AM.
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Ken mentioned Cole Porter's "Anything Goes", so here's that lyric. (Some standards have altered lyrics, perhaps due to being removed from the stage and sung for an audience that would not be assumed to get certain references.)
Anything Goes
By Cole Porter
Times have changed
And we've often rewound the clock
Since the Puritans got a shock
When they landed on Plymouth Rock.
If today
Any shock they should try to stem
'Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock,
Plymouth Rock would land on them.
In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking.
But now, God knows,
Anything goes.
Good authors too who once knew better words
Now only use four-letter words
Writing prose.
Anything goes.
If driving fast cars you like,
If low bars you like,
If old hymns you like,
If bare limbs you like,
If Mae West you like,
Or me undressed you like,
Why, nobody will oppose.
When ev'ry night the set that's smart is in-
Truding in nudist parties in
Studios.
Anything goes.
When Missus Ned McLean (God bless her)
Can get Russian reds to "yes" her,
Then I suppose
Anything goes.
When Rockefeller still can hoard en-
Ough money to let Max Gordon
Produce his shows,
Anything goes.
The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today,
And that gent today
You gave a cent today
Once had several chateaux.
When folks who still can ride in jitneys
Find out Vanderbilts and Whitneys
Lack baby clo'es,
Anything goes.
If Sam Goldwyn can with great conviction
Instruct Anna Sten in diction,
Then Anna shows
Anything goes.
When you hear that Lady Mendl standing up
Now turns a handspring landing up-
On her toes,
Anything goes.
Just think of those shocks you've got
And those knocks you've got
And those blues you've got
From that news you've got
And those pains you've got
(If any brains you've got)
From those little radios.
So Missus R., with all her trimmin's,
Can broadcast a bed from Simmons
'Cause Franklin knows
Anything goes.
Here is Ella singing it.
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Originally Posted by fep
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Night and day is definitely a work that comes to mind when I think of outstanding lyrics.
Here's one my Great-Uncle and I were discussing once.
When your lover has gone
When you're alone, who cares for starlit skies?
When you're alone, the magic moonlight dies
At break of dawn there is no sunrise
When your lover has gone
What lonely hours the evening shadows bring
What lonely hours with memories lingering
Like faded flowers life can't mean anything
When your lover has gone
When you're alone, who cares for starlit skies?
When you're alone, the magic moonlight dies
At break of dawn there is no sunrise
When your lover has gone
What lonely hours the evening shadows bring
What lonely hours with memories lingering
Like faded flowers life can't mean anything
When your lover, when your lover has gone
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Originally Posted by mrcee
Irving Berlin would use accented pronounciation to rhyme things most others would not, such as "call" and "natural" in "Alexander's Ragtime Band".
>>>They can play a bugle call
Like you never heard before
So natural that you want to go to war<<<<
(This is how the lyric appears online, but when sung, it is clear that 'natural' answers the bugle's 'call'.)
Songwriters who sing their own songs have the advantage of their own dialect. They don't have to worry that, say, "tired" and "hard" might not rhyme if Celine Dion sang it...
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Originally Posted by Thecytochromec
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08-11-2015, 11:52 AM #69destinytot Guest
My fave versions are those by Nat, Chet, and Maxine Sullivan
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I've heard "natural" pronounced 'nat-chel' and rhymes with "satchel'.
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
When George Jones sang The Window Up Above he pronounced window in the conventionally accepted American manner because it worked better in the song instead of "winda" which would be the way he would have normally said it. IMO there's no such thing as a correct accent. It's like a finger print. Everyone's got one. People who say they have no accent are wrong. Californians are guilty of this. I've personally got a hybrid accent having lived for years in Calif., Texas and NYC. And some years in the Caribbean. And these days I have to speak Spanish a lot. People who first meet me often ask, quizzically, where I'm from. Or if they know me better say they can't tell where I'm from. People up north say I have southern accent.(it's not). People down south say it's midwestern. (they're right). I can sing both Country and Caribbean music convincingly.
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I struggle to come up with my favorite lyrics for a jazz type of tune. For me, jazz is about improvisation, rhythm, interesting melody, and interesting harmonies. The lyrics get lost in the mix. Jazz for me is not the best music for enjoying lyrics.
I think simple and more repetitive music provides a better canvas to really highlight and draw ones focus to the lyrics.
Here is an example of Lyrics that I really like. The lyrics aren't completely obvious, they're thought provoking, ambiguous, mysterious, ... and there are probably more elements that I like that I'm not consciously aware of. I really should analyze lyrics that I like as part of the process of improving as a songwriter.
Many think this is a religious song. Rather, " “Hallelujah” is a robust canticle to lust, a wry ode to the glory of sex and a sad hymn to the eventual end of relationships."
“Hallelujah” – written by Leonard Cohen
I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this; the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well, really…what’s it to ya?
There’s a blaze of light in every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I told the truth, I didn’t come to fool ya.
And even though it all went wrong,
I’ll stand before the lord of song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
Hallelujah
(Below are alternate lyrics written by Cohen and used variously in live concerts,
also used in Cale, Buckley and lang studio versions, whereas the previous two verses are not)
Baby, I’ve been here before
I know this room, I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I’ve seen your flag on the Marble Arch
Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
(This fourth verse not used in k.d. lang’s cover)
There was a time you let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
I remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Maybe there’s a God above
All I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who out drew you
And it’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
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Originally Posted by mrcee
Love George! "He Stopped Loving Her Today" belongs here and I shall add it.
He Stopped Loving Her Today
By George Jones
He said "I'll love you till I die",
She told him "You'll forget in time"
As the years went slowly by,
She still preyed upon his mind
He kept her picture on his wall,
Went half-crazy now and then
He still loved her through it all,
Hoping she'd come back again
Kept some letters by his bed
Dated nineteen sixty-two
He had underlined in red
Every single "I love you"
I went to see him just today,
Oh but I didn't see no tears
All dressed up to go away,
First time I'd seen him smile in years
He stopped loving her today
They placed a wreath upon his door
And soon they'll carry him away
He stopped loving her today
You know, she came to see him one last time
Aww, and we all wondered if she would
And it kept runnin' through my mind
"This time he's over her for good"
He stopped loving her today
They placed a wreath upon his door
And soon they'll carry him away
He stopped loving her today
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Originally Posted by fep
Here's one of his songs about writing songs, "Tower Of Song." Monumental!
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
The real authors of "He Stopped Loving Her Today" are Bobby Braddock and Curly Putnam, two veteran country songwriters. The team also wrote "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," while Putnam wrote "The Green, Green Grass of Home," a number one hit for Tom Jones in 1966.
I've noticed that lyrics site frequently incorrectly name the singer of a song as the author. I wouldn't trust any of their attributions without checking a more reliable source.
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